An Apple a Day | Why I Switched To iPhone

An Apple a Day | Why I Switched To iPhone

On September 19th I made the switch to iPhone after years of being an Android user – and Blackberry before that. This is my first iPhone, and after having such a long and well-documented love affair with Android and all things Google it raised a few eyebrows when I posted a photo of my new iPhone 6 on social media

I think sometimes there’s this belief that when it comes to smartphones, wanting an Android or wanting an iPhone are mutually exclusive. There’s a lot of talk of going over to the “dark side” or “the light side” or “the right side”. When I told Nick that I had pre-ordered an iPhone 6, even he said “What?! You hate Android now?” Or I get the flip side of that same statement – “I thought you hated Apple?”

Not even kind of!

We’re a family of tech/gadget lovers and I’ve never been anti-Apple. I just down own any. I don’t own a dog, either, but I still love dogs. I replace my phone every two years and the search for my next! awesome! phone! starts months before my upgrade date arrives. For the past few years my phone of choice has been an Android, this time it wound up being the iPhone 6 – and I thought I’d share a couple of reasons why I made the switch.

SIZE

Androids keep getting bigger and bigger, and I’m not becoming any less of a klutz. The Galaxy S3 I’ve had for the past two years has a 4.8” display and I love the phone, but the new Galaxy S5 (which was my frontrunner in the Android category) is a whopping 5.1”. I already fumble to use my S3 with one hand, and as a result I’ve dropped it a lot. Once you add the top and bottom bezels to the 4.7” iPhone 6 it winds up being almost exactly the same size as my S3. It’s a little longer, a little narrower, but otherwise the same. I actually would have been fine with it being a bit smaller, and I was a bit disheartened when I saw that Apple had made the move towards bigger displays right when I decided I might want a smaller phone. But the narrower design of the iPhone 6 means it’s easier for me to use one-handed.

APPS

I’m a little sad to say that this was as big of a determining factor as it was – because I’ve had a lot of really great apps on my Androids over the years – but the reality is that apps in our industry, especially, don’t trickle over to Android. The big services and corporations all develop apps on both platforms but most of the smaller, more independent brands really only have plans to develop their apps on iPhone. I like to toy with new things, and it was sort of getting old to see my iPhone using friends playing with fun new photography and social media apps that probably wouldn’t appear on Android for a long time – if at all. After a while you start to feel like the kid with their face pressed up against the glass, watching all the other kids play outside.

LONGEVITY (HOPEFULLY)

This is one of the things I’m testing out by switching. I don’t play much on my phone, but I work A LOT on my phone. If it weren’t for smartphones my family might never see me, which probably sounds odd considering there are a lot of people who say they’re trying to go more “hands-free” and not spend so much time on their phones. But if I don’t have my phone and am not able to read/do/solve things wherever I am, then I’ll just always be at my desk. And because of all the fragmentation in the Android arena I typically only got about 18 months of problem-free Android usage and then it was 6 months of trying to survive until I could upgrade my phone. That 18 month mark was usually the point where the next two versions of my particular phone model had come out, which meant they weren’t supporting mine anymore with OS updates. A lot of times this meant my apps crashed more, my phone locked up and/or rebooted more, and everything else was just plain slow or glitchy. Yet I know people who claim to still be chugging along (albeit slowly) on their iPhone 4 even after the 4S, the 5, and the 5S have come and gone.

AESTHETICS

I know … I know … but it’s just sooooooo pretty.

CURIOSITY

Seriously. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I’ve always said I have no opinions one way or the other on the iPhone because I’ve never had one, so now I can have an opinion.

I’ve only been a iPhone user for a little over a week, so I’m still adjusting to a new way of doing things. There are things I think that Android really has figured out, and there are things I think the iPhone excels at. All in all they’re very different, I feel like they both have their strong and weak points – but they’re also both constantly evolving and any frustrations I have with one or the other may be a distant memory a year from now. And two years from now I’ll likely be in the market for my next phone and I’ll be back at square one again, like a kid in a candy store … open to the idea of both again.

19 Comments

I’m doing the exact opposite. I’ve had 3 iPhones but I think my next phone will be an Android (leaning towards the Xperia Z3). I feel like I’m ready to try something new and was not wowed by the iPhone 6. Thanks for sharing your reasons for choosing the iPhone though… Now I have more to think about.

I really sort of like the idea of not being tied to one OS or the other, I don’t feel like there needs to be a line in the sand where you “choose a side”, so to speak. I did like the Xperia Z3! That bronzey coppery color called out to me. I feel like it would definitely be a frontrunner for my son based almost solely on the PS4 integration. I liked the LG L3, as well.

Hah, I did the exact opposite this year and switched from an iPhone 5 and a Macbook Pro to a Samsung s5 and a custom built PC. I love it, so much, even if I do have to whine to my techy husband to fix things every so often.

Had you tried the split screen one-handed mode on s5? I don’t use it much, but I could see how that would be handy. iPhone 6 has a similar thing, I think.

I hadn’t really toyed with the split screen on the G5, no. It felt so big in my hand, and I typically walk around with my phone in my hand. It’s basically attached to my person at all times. I did consider waiting a bit longer to see the next generation of “minis” come out on Android (I was hoping for a Galaxy S5 mini to debut, maybe?) but my G3 has been limping along since Spring. I already wiped it clean with a factory reset once to give it a little pep again, but it’s still letting it’s obsolescence show.

This is so good Peppermint! I admit to being somewhat anti-apple way back in the day (mostly because of bad experiences trying to bring files from my home PC to a school Mac), but when the iPhone first came about, I reluctantly gave it a shot and loved it. I’m pro-whatever is best. It’s good that there is competition because it results in great things for the consumers.

It hasn’t just been with my S3, the same sort of life cycle occurred with my Moto Droid X before that – and now two of my friends with S4s are factory resetting their phones to squeeze a few more months of life out of them. I think it all must depend on what sorts of things you do on your phone. One of the first signs of death on my S3 was the WiFi connection would drop and wouldn’t’ reconnect unless I rebooted the phone. Also my Gmail app would lock up and crash when flipping through recent mail. My Samsung photo gallery hadn’t worked in over a year, it would lock up and crash when scrolling through photos (I had to use a third-party photo gallery to access my photos) And mail, photos and web-access are the three things I’ll notice the most when they’re not working, of course!

I know what you mean about size and “the dark side”. I feel like people try to convince me to either go to the dark side (ie. android) because it’s a better camera (main thing as I always have my phone on me) and you don’t have to plug through iTunes, etc. I always feel like you have to choose sides! Or people convince you to switch phones because it’s the next best thing out there. I for one don’t care. I’ve always been fond of having an iPhone (5S currently) mainly because of its size! When I was due for an upgrade 5 mths ago I was debating with getting a Note3 or S4 but decided against it because it’s just too big to hold in my small hands up to my ear to talk/text. And as you’ve said all the fun apps usually come out on iPhone first prior to a ‘droid. MAYBE I’ll switch over to an Android with my next upgrade but it’ll have to depend on which have more benefits for me!

” Yet I know people who claim to still be chugging along (albeit slowly) on their iPhone 4 even after the 4S, the 5, and the 5S have come and gone.” ….and I am still working with a 3GS (dark ages!!!!) and doing okay (some apps are now impossible for me, but I’m still basically functional). However, I am awfully envious of the newer phones now and anxiously awaiting an upgrade!!

I’m always an Android users, not hate iPhone but not really like it, as its price is too high for me now (especially in my country where there’re still no official Apple store, the price of everything related to Apple are pushed up to much by personal sellers). And I love phones with big screens (I now use a 5″). Before iPhone 6, all lines of iphone’ screens are really too small to me. However I like iPhone6, thinking about trying it some days.

Your Android recommendations have always been so helpful. I’ve also been toying with the idea of converting from my S4 to iPhone. My main motivation is apps. I’m a little concerned about the durability, as I’ve heard of the 6 slightly “bending” in people’s pockets, with it’s slimmer design. Thanks for sharing your thoughts…please keep us posted.

From what I’ve read the bending issue only has 9 reported cases? (Article from today in the Guardian) But I don’t carry my phone in my pocket anyway, it’s either in my hand or in my purse! I remember when I got my Samsung S3 there were reports of people snapping the phone in two when sitting down with it in their front pocket and so I was hyper paranoid about that. I’m sure that one wound up to be just a few isolated incidents as well, I abused this S3 over the years and it barely has a scratch on it.

It great if you would post a comparison after you are a few months into the switch. I can speak to longevity, my husband is chugging along, very slowly, on our iphone 3Gs since June after he first lost his Samsung Galaxy Note 2 (I think that is what it was).

I went to iPhone and MacBook Pro last year. Dragged kicking and screaming into this world from my Android and PC ways. I have found reasons to love it and still have some things I am not thrilled with but that is the case with all things I am sure. I had to read this post because I heard you always being the voice of Android on The podcast. Now you will have reference from both sides. I personally had the chance to switch back a couple weeks ago and the only deciding factor was that Project Life app was on it’s way out for iPhone. ;)

My gallery will quit working, and quit saving to my SD card when I end up with a corrupted file. It usually happens when not in burst mode, my preschooler decided to take about 50 photos in a minute. I don’t know why it locks it up, but when I go back and check there’s always a corrupted file. Once I delete it, the gallery works again.

I will add that my mom has an iPhone 4 that keeps locking up on her. She actually can’t update it unless she connects it to the computer. It doesn’t always ring her calls through, and quite often she will receive a slew of texts and emails from the entire day in the span of 5 minutes. Apple told her to just update it. So, sadly, I think every company has an old model problem.

I wish we weren’t such a disposable society, especially when it comes to phone technology.

So interesting to hear the views of both sides. I was a PC user for 20 years but became frustrated with how quickly even the expensive ones seem to start having problems. When I’d call in for support the IT people would say the computers were more likely to have problems today because the parts going into them aren’t as good of quality. I gave up, switched to Mac and couldn’t be happier! I love the way my computer and iPhone 5s interact, iCloud is awesome and my favorite thing of all is the calendar. I can schedule things on my iPhone and they appear on my Mac and vice-versa, I can print the calendars out to hang on the fridge for my family. It has finally solved my long standing Planner/Calendar issue. Thanks for sharing!

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